The Most Recent Catastrophe

Kotaku carried a story yesterday that is (basically) the Nintendo DS version of that PlaystationPornable scare from six months ago. You can see it here, and you should, because it’s awesome. It depicts a scenario so imaginative that it juts into the realm of speculative fiction:

While driving on the highway, a child molester who is also driving might look into the back seat of your car and see your child using their DS back there. According to this terrifying report, the child molester can then - while driving their car - produce a DS of their own and utilize it to divine your home address. You will recall that he is driving on the highway at speeds approaching sixty miles an hour. One hand is on the wheel and the other is managing the gearbox. Thus, there can be no question.

He is entering these messages into the DS with his erect phallus.

The report isn’t specific on this last point, but it’s clearly present in the subtext. Pedophiles are writing messages to your kids using their dicks.

There is probably something here that could be of use to parents, but it is buried so deeply in viewer manipulation that it couldn’t possibly be extricated. Another Fox affiliate has done another story whose only purpose is to… Well, to what exactly? Despoil an otherwise pure half-hour? May we all live in a place so tame that we must invent our evil.

While I was examining the hard-line orthodoxy on offer at TeamXbox, I noticed that they had a new screenshot (complete with an extremely brief informational snippet) up for Mass Effect. When I went back later to grab the link I would use in this post, I saw another update with even more screens. This is not a game about which one receives a lot of information, which gave this odd barrage the hallmark of a media push.

The Australian site for the game recently slipped up and announced a date for it, May 18th, which many sites referred to as a "rumor" when it really looks more like a "leak" - the information wasn’t slapped up on Spong or sequestered in some disreputable forum. It appeared on Australia’s version of the official Xbox domain, which I am assuming we consider an official source. I would prefer that this not be the correct date, but I don’t hold out much hope. What I saw at E3 was enthralling, and I would like to own it, but I’m having a hard time picturing what they were trying to accomplish being ready for the shelf in less than a year’s time.

Western RPGs tend to be held together by naught more than fond wishes most of the time, partly because of publisher reticence to commit to the kind of cycle this genre truly requires. I hope that’s not what’s happening here.